In general, exercise garments including gloves, boots and belts incorporating built-in weights are well known. Examples of such prior art exercise garments are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,759,510 to Jackson, Jr., issued Sept. 18, 1973; 1,729,209 to Curtice, issued Sept. 24, 1929; and 2,241,833 to Waller, issued May 13, 1941. Weighted exercise gloves are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,838,853 to Fredenhagen, issued Oct. 1, 1974; 4,034,979 to Wester, issued July 12, 1977, 4,330,120 to Netti, issued May 18, 1982; and 4,247,097 to Schwartz, issued Jan. 27, 1981.
These prior art exercise gloves are generally large, clumsy and do not provide a convenient means for increasing and decreasing the weight of the glove. The use of particulate weight material, or bags thereof, is highly disadvantageous. In addition, the gloves taught by the prior art do not provide a convenient interchangable weight load system in which the weights are snugly received in a pocket regardless of the number of weights the wearer chooses to load into the pocket.
Several of the foregoing patents disclose exercise garments having pockets which can be closed by means of releasable contact fasteners. Such releasable contact fasteners comprise a pair of elements which can be secured together merely by bringing the respective elements into mutual contact. Once secured in this manner, the elements generally strongly resist being pulled apart by forces acting in or near the plane of contact between the elements, but resist forces acting perpendicular to this plane of contact to a much lesser extent. Thus, a user or wearer releases the releasable contact fastener merely by pulling the elements apart in the appropriate direction. Typically, one of the elements is secured to the body of the garment, i.e. comprises a base element, so that the user releases the fastener by pulling the other element away from the base element. A popular type of releasable contact fastener utilizes a hook tape (a strip of fabric bearing a multiplicity of small hooks or barbs) cooperating with a loop tape (a strip of fabric bearing a pile of fine strands) such that, upon contact, the hook tape barbs releasably catch in the loop tape pile. Such fasteners are commercially available, e.g. under the trademark Velcro. Another type of releasable contact fastener comprises a pair of elements wherein at least one of the elements has a layer of adhesive thereon which releasably binds the elements together.
The use of hook tape/loop tape fasteners in connection with gloves is known. However, the prior art employs separate fastening mechanisms for the purposes of, for example, fastening pocket flaps and fastening the glove to the wearer's hand, thereby increasing the cost of the glove.